Ethical issues in engineering design - 3TU.Centre for Ethics and ...

Ethical issues in engineering design
regulative framework, one that deals with the level of hindrance that a bridge is
allowed to cause ships in a canal, river or harbour.
I will start with a discussion of some aspects of the regulative framework
concerning safety during construction. Dutch legislation on working conditions
is an implementation of European directives 89/391/EC (health and safety at
work in general) and 92/57/EC (health and safety on construction sites). The law
on working conditions is very general and only states goals, for example that an
employee should not be put at risk. However, the law is supplemented with
several policy rules, rules on fines for breaches of safety regulation, rules for
inspection of working conditions etc. All these rules are much more detailed and
are supplemented by ideas on how to interpret the rules, law etc [Wilders, 2004].
The complete Dutch working conditions regulation system constitutes a
regulative framework.
The IBA engineers only used part of this regulative framework, they only
made the required health and safety plan. The rest of the regulative framework,
such as the more detailed rules, was not considered by the engineers. The IBA
engineers only carried out the requirement to make a health and safety plan
because they considered the rest outside the scope of engineering design. The
law also assigns only this specific responsibility to the designing engineers. The
complete regulative framework is relevant for contractors not for designing
engineers according to the IBA engineers.
I will not go into the question of whether or not the regulative framework
concerning working conditions is a normative framework. I conclude that the
regulative framework was not used by engineers in this case. Engineers have a
task assigned to them by the regulative framework but because the task is
limited and procedural they can perform this task without using the rest of the
framework. If a health and safety plan made by design engineers does not
contribute to better working conditions on a building site then it might be a good
idea to assign more substantial responsibilities to the design engineers
concerning working conditions. This would force the engineers to use the
regulative framework concerning working conditions.
There is also a regulative framework for road design. This regulative
framework requires, amongst other things, minimum widths of roads. The
requirements from the road design framework are decisive for the width of a
bridge. So although the engineers did not work within the road design regulative
framework their work was influenced by some of its rules. With regard to the
possible regulative framework concerning hindrance of ships on canals, rivers
and in harbours, the same holds. The IBA engineers only knew some of the
rules and just sent their design to the Rijkswaterstaat to be controlled. The IBA
engineers therefore did not use all of the rules or legislation concerning the
118